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ETV's First "Carolina Stories" HD Production "Carolina Caught"
Captures South Carolina's Shrimping Industry

Airs Two Days After Digital Transition - Thursday, Feb 19 at 9 p.m.

For Immediate Release
January 23, 2009

Columbia, SC… Errol Hattaway is hanging up his nets. With the official close of the 2008 shrimping season today, the captain of the shrimp trawler Betty H. has moored his ship to the dock for the final time. No more grueling hours behind the wheel. No more backbreaking labor of bringing in the next haul. He's done with shrimp--at least until May, when the next season begins.

But will he decide to come back at all? Or will his nets remain high and dry? In recent years, Hattaway, a McClellanville native and a commercial shrimper for over three decades, is finding the shrimping industry a much more difficult place to turn a profit. Indeed, he seems to be one of a dieing breed of fishermen who make their living off of South Carolina's shores.

Hattaway is the focus of ETV's newest "Carolina Stories" documentary, "Carolina Caught," which airs on Thursday, February 19 at 9 p.m. Interspersed between scenes that reflect the demanding work aboard the Betty H., the half-hour program interviews those like Hattaway whose lives and livelihoods depend on shrimp. In the process, "Carolina Caught" sheds light on what remains of the Palmetto's State once-thriving shrimping industry, what caused its decline, and where it might be heading in the future.

The ETV program has the distinction of being the first "Carolina Stories" production to be shot all in high definition, making the South Carolina coast, with its blue waters and beautiful sunrises, shine like never before. The program was taped all throughout the Lowcountry, including McClellanville, Charleston's Shem Creek, Bluffton and Beaufort.

As recently as 2003, shrimp became the king of the sea, named as the number one seafood consumed by Americans for the first time. And that should be great news for South Carolina shrimpers, since high demand usually comes with higher prices, right?

Not so, according to Amber Von Harten, a fisheries specialist with the SC Sea Grant Consortium, who said that around 2001, a flood of foreign shrimp was dumped on the US market. "And as a result, that caused the price of shrimp to drop dramatically to prices that they were seeing from the 1950s and '60s. Less than a dollar a pound sometimes," said Von Harten.

And while prices have rebounded a little over the last few years, Steve Kerchner, captain of the Poor Boy shrimping vessel in Beaufort, still estimates that 90 percent of the shrimp eaten today in the US are imported.

The already-struggling industry suffered another blow as last summer's spike in fuel costs made a hard day's work equate to simply trading shrimp for fuel, with nothing left over to live on.

"Right now, I feel like I'm just about out of a job," Kerchner said, "(With) the current price of fuel, this is not a viable business. There's no other way to put it."

However, "Carolina Caught" reveals that there is still a glimmer of hope for the industry's future:

• Jane Webb, with the Charleston-based SC Shrimpers Association Marketing Board has said that the group's efforts have managed to place tariffs against six different countries that import their pond-raised shrimp

• SC Department of Natural Resource researchers at the Waddell Mariculture Center in Bluffton have developed new and improved ways to produce locally-grown pond shrimp here in the US

• And as for wild-caught shrimp, Lantz Price, a Beaufort restaurateur predicts they might rise to the preferred status of a "boutique" product, sold only to finer restaurants, giving shrimpers a price per pound they can live with

South Carolina ETV is the state's public educational broadcasting network with 11 television and eight radio transmitters, and a multi-media educational system in more than 2,500 schools, colleges, businesses and government agencies. Using television, radio and the web, SCETV's mission is to enrich lives by educating children, informing and connecting citizens, celebrating our culture and environment and instilling the joy of learning.

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For more information, contact Rob Schaller at (803) 737-6556 or rschaller@scetv.org.

Captain Errol Hattaway. Photo credit: Mark Adams/ETV

Errol Hattaway’s shrimp boat, the Betty H., heads out at sunrise for another day of fishing. Photo credit: Mark Adams/ETV

Errol Hattaway, captain of the Betty H., preparing the nets for another day of shrimp fishing. Photo credit: Mark Adams/ETV